June 1–2, 2024
Join acclaimed artist NAIMA GREEN for a workshop exploring the intersection of queer ecologies and portrait making. This workshop will take place with the stunning and mystical Hudson Valley plant world as our backdrop–or as some might say, the main attraction! Along with Green and herbalist MANDANA BOUSHEE, participants will embark on two immersive days looking at and thinking about the interactions between plants and their environments. This will, in turn, draw attention to how those connections transcend notions of binaries within our shared worlds.
This exploratory workshop will start with an intensive plant walk and discussion, followed by an afternoon with Green creating individual portraits. These portraits will be inspired by the things we encountered on our walk and what we learned about the local environment and its many varied inhabitants. On day two, we will process the work we have made at CPW’s Digital Media Lab and create digital negatives for an afternoon of cyanotype making.
WHAT TO BRING: A notebook and a digital camera or smartphone. Basic knowledge of photography is a plus but not required. All other materials will be provided.
SATURDAY, JUNE 1: 10:00 – 4:00 pm
SUNDAY, JUNE 2: 10:00 – 4:00 pm
WHERE:
Day 1- Kingston Point Park, Kingston, NY
Day 2 – 25 Dederick Street, Kingston, NY
Please reach out to nicole@cpw.org if you have questions regarding accessibility at Kingston Point Park.
TUITION: Sliding Scale $50-350*
CLASS LIMIT: 15
*Please consider what amount you can comfortably pay.
ABOUT THE INSTRUCTORS:
NAIMA GREEN is an artist and educator who pictures individuals and communities to document their vibrant relationships to place and pleasure. Green accesses and prioritizes the nature of intimacy, safety, and self-recognition. She considers water as fluid and regenerative and presents a window into the relationship between pleasure and the complex experience of the ocean: beauty, leisure, buoyancy, and overwhelm. Oral and written histories and the archival material essential to uncovering these stories are critical to her process. By synthesizing archival research with outreach and conversation with current sitters, she frames photo-making as a continuum and her still images as kinetic, living histories.
MANDANA (ماندانا) BOUSHEE is an Iranian-American community herbalist, storyteller, land tender, and a joyous member of the mycelial network of liberatory-movement stewards and lovers. She is a cofounder and educator at Wild Gather, School of Herbal Studies, where she has the deep pleasure of sharing her love and experiences with plant medicine and community care.
Banner image © Naima Green.
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